Vasterman
This is the personal blog of Dutch media sociologist Peter Vasterman. He collects his own articles, opinion pieces and analyses there, partly in Dutch and partly in English.
More about this on this site: Peter Vasterman (media sociologist) — The battle between sex and gender.
What you will find
A substantial portion of the recent posts deals with transgender healthcare for young people. Vasterman discusses figures from studies, such as the question of how many young people identify as transgender or gender-diverse, and assesses how those figures are presented. The blog also includes references to his opinion piece in NRC about the Dutch Protocol, an article about the sharp rise in the number of referrals and broadcaster Human’s Medialogica documentary about transgender healthcare.
Why it is included on this list
The blog is a Dutch-language platform where figures and reporting about gender healthcare are systematically examined. Vasterman is outspokenly critical of the Dutch Protocol; it is a personal blog, not an editorial publication. See also Developments in the Netherlands.
Who Peter Vasterman is
On his blog, Vasterman writes that he taught journalists and conducted research for forty years on media hypes, the construction of social problems, crises, scandals and reporting on risks. He is affiliated with the media studies department at the University of Amsterdam and taught in its master’s programme in journalism. In 2004, he completed his PhD with the dissertation Mediahype. In 2018, an internationally published collection on media hypes appeared under his editorship and was made freely accessible.
Key articles on gender healthcare
On 31 January 2024, Vasterman discussed the study Sex Under 25. It found that 92,500 young people aged 12 to 25 identify as transgender or gender-diverse, a 45 per cent increase in five years, with girls accounting for 63 per cent. On 12 March 2024, he followed this with a critical discussion of a study by UMCG, which stated that 19 per cent of young people are uncertain about their own gender. On 29 April 2024, he and Jan Kuitenbrouwer wrote in NRC that the Dutch Protocol is untenable, in response to the Cass Review. On 18 April 2025, an article he co-wrote with Jilles Smids about Ian Hacking’s theory and the sharp increase in medical transitions among adolescents appeared in the journal Philosophy & Practice. The most recent post, dated 10 March 2026, is called Transgender as taboo. In it, he says that he was called transphobic after the NRC article. Jan Kuitenbrouwer wrote a two-part article in HP/De Tijd in 2023 about how difficult it was to get a critical article about the gender debate published in a Dutch newspaper. This site contains adaptations of more of his articles, including one about the US Transgender Survey.
How to use and assess this source
Vasterman is a media sociologist, not a doctor or clinical researcher. His strength lies in examining how figures are produced and how the media report on them. Analyses of framing in gender news can also be found on gendermedia.nl. For the medical content, you can consult the studies he discusses yourself. Background information on the figures can be found under young people.